No Time for Cowards

There are many points of biblical truth under attack in our culture today, but I think it's safe to say that God's design for human sexuality, marriage, and family are at the center of the conflict. This might be new in our culture in our lifetimes, but it is certainly not new for Christian families to be completely out of step with society. The early church found themselves in open conflict with the Greco-Roman culture of the 1st century. Among other things, this means that the teaching of Christ and the Apostles was NOT meant to be limited to the 1st century context. The biblical teaching on sexuality and marriage was just as countercultural then as it is now.

When popular opinion and the agenda of societal elites are openly hostile to the teaching of Scripture, it is very tempting for Christians to keep their heads down and try to go about their business without doing or saying anything to provoke controversy. Some Christians will simply cave in to the cultural pressure altogether, but most will attempt to walk the tightrope of faithfulness to Scripture and cultural acceptance. But the protestant reformer Martin Luther saw the danger and the cowardice of such an approach. Luther said,

"If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point."

In other words, this is no time for cowardice or compromise. When God's word is rejected, lives are destroyed—literally and figuratively. The truth may be uncomfortable, but the only alternative is ruin and death.